Since a magnitude 9.0 earthquake rocked Japan and set loose a massive tsunami March 11, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has been scrambling to avert a nuclear disaster at its hardest hit plant. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, home to six nuclear reactors, has witnessed explosions at three reactors and a fire in a spent-fuel pool at a fourth. At two reactors, unit Nos. 2 and 3, the vessels containing the nuclear material are suspected to be compromised.

A handful of plant workers remain on the site, implementing emergency cooling measures at the stricken, overheating reactors. Radiation levels have fluctuated wildly during the crisis, and the extent to which the workers' health has been endangered may not become apparent for years. But so far, the radiation releases have been limited compared with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, an explosive event that caused dozens of cases of fatal radiation poisoning among plant workers and that has been implicated in thousands of thyroid cancer diagnoses in the years that followed. (Nuclear fission of uranium fuel produces radioactive iodine, which gathers in the thyroid gland.) As many nuclear experts have noted, the Fukushima reactors are better designed than the failed Chernobyl reactor.

Below are some facts and figures about the radiation hazard posed by the Fukushima breakdown and how it compares with other nuclear accidents in history. Many of the figures are measured in millisieverts, an international unit of radiation dosage. (One sievert is equal to 100 rems, which is a dosage unit of x-ray and gamma-ray radiation exposure; one millisievert is 0.1 rem.)

Radiation dose at the boundary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station on March 16: 1.9 millisieverts (mSv) per hour

Sources: Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, International Atomic Energy Agency, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Nuclear Energy Institute